Disability and Equity in Education Commons^™

“We Love Our Kids Too” Black Parents Supporting The Academic Success Of Their Children In Affluent, Predominantly White School Districts, Janeane M. Davis

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Using an endarkened narrative inquiry method, the author examined the narratives of Black parents about the experiences of their children on their academic journeys while attending school in affluent, predominantly white school districts, as well as the stories of how those Black parents support the academic success of their children in those school districts. Data collection strategies included one-on-one semi-structured interviews with parents. The researcher conducted the study using an endarkened narrative inquiry methodology and analyzed the narratives of Black parents in their efforts to support their children on their academic journeys. The researcher evaluated tools, techniques, and strategies that …

Advocacy Agency Assignment (Aaa), Christopher D. Yawn

Open Educational Resources

As a special educator, it is important to be familiar with the various organizations that work to benefit individuals with disabilities. To that end, this assignment requires students to locate organizations that work for the benefit of individuals with disabilities and share out with their peers to add to their cache of helpful resources to provide to the families they serve.

Accommodating Pregnancy In Academic Libraries: Tips For Librarians And Supervisors, Samantha Peter, Katie Quirin Manwiller

Educational Leadership & Higher Education Administration Faculty Publications

Pregnancy and disability are rarely seen as overlapping experiences within Amer­ican society’s limited concepts of disability. Disabled pregnant people face inva­sive ableism from the general public and their healthcare providers. However, people with disabilities report similar rates of pregnancy as those without disabilities. Even for nondisabled pregnant people, pregnancy itself can be inherently disabling. While many nondisabled people will not personally identify with disability during their pregnancy, their symptoms may necessitate accommodation to continue working. As such, we must look at the intersections of disability and pregnancy when creating inclusive libraries. This chapter provides a practical guide to accommodating pregnancy …

The Americans With Disabilities Act And Academic Library Workers, Katie Quirin Manwiller

Educational Leadership & Higher Education Administration Faculty Publications

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) established the legal requirement for equal access to employment for disabled Americans, but the processes for inclusion established by the law are rarely discussed in the workplace. This chapter will outline the requirements under Title I of the ADA for employment related to discrimination in the workplace and reasonable accommodations. Crucially, it provides practical recommendations for navigating these processes to help disabled academic library workers advocate for themselves and others. Lastly, it provides tips for library supervisors on how to creative inclusive environments that go beyond the bare minimum of accessibility required by the …

Liberatory Motherhood: A Framework & Praxis For Caring And Scholaring Otherwise In The Neoliberal Academy, Bhavika Sicka

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

This article contributes to the emergent literature on motherhood in neoliberal higher education by proposing liberatory motherhood as a theoretical framework and praxis to deconstruct and reconstruct motherhood in the neoliberal academy. The author, an early-career immigrant woman scholar of color, uses feminist autoethnography to critically examine the disempowering, disembodying, and departicularizing effects of neoliberal subjectivation on motheracademics, foregrounding her lived experiences of caregiving in her analysis. She approaches academic motherhood through a prismatic lens of a pluralistic feminist rhetorical analysis that emphasizes interrelationality, tracing her experiences of caring and producing otherwise as a way to signal opportunities to reembody …

Leading Beyond The School Walls: Understanding Principal Community Activism, Jason D. Salisbury, Meagan S. Richard

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to investigate the ways school leaders perceive and engage in community-focused, activist leadership in response to community needs. We rely on a critical qualitative research design that draws on critical urban theory. Sources of data include a pilot focus group, semi-structured in-depth interviews with activist leaders, and publicly available documents. Findings demonstrate the ways that leaders engaged in activism by developing understandings of the communities they served as a first step to activism, rooting their schools as a physical resource for communities, and responding to community needs via activist practices. Through their work, leaders …

Quiet Resistance: Drawing On Covert Advocacy Research To Understand School Leadership Within The Current Anti-Trans Context, Alexandria Gribble, Erica Simpson, Meagan S. Richard

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Over the last few years, there has been a surge in anti-LGBTQIA+ and, specifically, anti-transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming legislation. These laws target the rights of LGBTQIA+ students in K–12 schools, leading to policies censoring gender-inclusive curricula, mandating the outing of students, and restricting transgender students’ access to sports and facilities. The rapid emergence of these bills has outpaced research on how leaders—particularly justice-centred leaders—navigate these hostile policy contexts. Existing research taking a broader lens around leaders’ justice work in schools sheds light on how leaders engage in covert advocacy within complex and constraining contexts. However, understanding how leaders resist …

Lived Experiences Of Marginalized Pre-Service Teachers' Technology Ownership And Acquisition Of Digital Skills, Jerolyn Brown, Tian Luo

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Aim/Purpose

Despite increasing access to technology, persistent disparities in digital competence and self-efficacy remain among marginalized pre-service teachers, often exacerbated by systemic inequities and the digital divide. This research explores the gap in knowledge of the lived experiences of marginalized pre-service teachers’ (PST) prior access to technology and their current perceptions about educational technology integration.

Background

Grounded in Sociocultural Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior, this study seeks to answer how marginalized pre-service teachers perceive prior and current technology ownership and related skill acquisition, what beliefs and intentions they have for future classroom technology integration, and what systemic disparities …

Collaborative Leadership, Elizabeth Burns

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article focuses on the importance of collaborative leadership among school librarians to enhance their effectiveness in various roles, including as instructional partners and information specialists. It emphasizes that school librarians often struggle with their leadership identity, but adopting a collaborative approach can facilitate shared responsibility and empower teamwork. The text highlights successful initiatives, such as partnerships between school and public librarians in Napa Valley, which ensure equitable access to library resources for all students, and collaborations between school librarians and administrators that underscore the impact of libraries on student success. Additionally, it discusses the global perspective on school librarianship, …

Boys Build, Girls Glam: An Examination Of Adult Language Use In Informal Steam Education Settings, Alexandra Horton

Theses and Dissertations

Research on STEAM education has primarily focused on formal education settings such as schools, with more research needed in informal or non-traditional education settings. As children frequently engage with informal and non-traditional education settings, it is important to understand how we can transmit information in these settings to bolster and further the learning process and increase engagement. STEAM fields have been plagued by racial and gender inequities that have led to these groups being marginalized and excluded (Blair et al., 2017; Eaton et al., 2020; Martin, 2018; Martin & Phillips, 2019; Miller et al., 2018; Newall et al., 2018, Sheffield …

Theoretical Frameworks Used To Conceptualize The Intersection Of Deafness, Emotional/Behavioral Disabilities, And Language In The Literature: A Scoping Review, Jeremy M. Peterson

Theses and Dissertations

The prevalence rate for emotional/behavioral disabilities (EBD) among d/Deaf and hard of hearing (d/DHH) students has consistently been reported as statistically elevated in the literature, but the exact reason for this high prevalence has not been determined. Factors such as diagnostic shadowing, language proficiency, and difficulties in interfamilial communication have been identified; however, recent research suggests that language deprivation may also be a contributing factor. The intersection of language deprivation and EBD among d/DHH students has been studied by numerous researchers, but, to date, no one has explored how these topics are conceptualized together in the literature. As such, I …

From Likes To Enrollment: How Social Networking Sites Shape College Decision-Making, David Hermann

Theses and Dissertations

This study applied Chickering and Reisser’s seven vectors of student development (1993), MacMillan’s existential framework (2009), and Chickering and Gamson’s principles for good practice in undergraduate education (1999) as guiding theoretical and conceptual frameworks. These perspectives informed the analysis of voices from young adults in rural communities and explored how recently graduated high school students perceived their use of social networking sites (SNSs) in the college search and decision-making process. I developed five overarching themes from the qualitative data: 1) informational role of social media, 2) visual media and campus impressions, 3) authenticity, peer influence, and human connection, 4) frustrations, …

Learning My Way: Storytelling As A Tool For Inclusive And Responsive Teaching, Alicia D. Stein

Education | Graduate Culminating Projects

Learning My Way: Storytelling as a Tool for Inclusive and Responsive Teaching is a masters project designed to advance educational equity by centering students with disabilities in inclusive, identity-affirming classrooms. This project includes two parts and includes an original children’s storybook, Winnie’s Way, and an accompanying teacher handbook grounded in Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT.) The story follows Winnie, a young girl with hemiplegic cerebral palsy, as she navigates her school environment with determination, creativity, and the support of her teacher and peers. Through Winnie’s journey, students learn to celebrate difference and advocate for their own learning needs.

The teacher guide …

Manifesting A Shift In The "Overton Window": The Threat Of Project 2025 On The Lgbtq+ Community In Higher Education, Athena M. King, Sara Sanatkar

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Since the first Trump administration, historically marginalized groups in the United States have been subjected to greater instances of bigotry and discrimination due to conservative influence on sociopolitical institutions. These actions suggest a shift in the "Overton Window," whereby policy preferences previously deemed "unacceptable" are given consideration in the mainstream, especially by conservative policy actors. "Project 2025" is a comprehensive plan to restructure the federal government according to conservative dictates in the second Trump administration. This article is an examination of how higher education may be impacted by this plan, especially as it relates to LGBTQ+ faculty, administration, staff, and …

Accessibility In The Academic Library: Assessing The Web Accessibility Of Neflin Member Library Websites, Cody Michaels

Publications

Web accessibility has been a topic of discussion in organizations for decades. Much ink, physical and digital, has been spilled urging developers, designers, and web administrators to build their online environment so that users of all abilities can access their content. Despite this, web accessibility remains out of reach across swathes of the Internet. The organization WebAIM conducts annual studies reviewing the accessibility of the 1,000,000 most popular websites’ homepages.1 The results for 2025 found that these pages had an average of 51 errors per page. While this represents a decrease from the previous year, there remains much work to …

Including Conscientiously: How Charter School Educators Experience Inclusion Education Implementation, Joe A. Petty

Dissertations

This narrative inquiry examined how charter school educators experience inclusive education implementation while confronting ableist systems that maintain exclusion through seemingly neutral practices. This research emerged from my lived experience of how educational structures systematically marginalize disabled students while appearing progressive. The study investigated two research questions: how support structures and leadership practices either perpetuate or dismantle ableist assumptions embedded in educational practice, and how educators negotiate tensions between implementing evidence-based inclusive strategies and addressing environmental factors that create the need for those strategies.

Data collection employed semistructured interviews with eight credentialed educators across two Southern California charter school sites, …

Vietnamese Efl Lecturers’ Perceptions Of The Role Of Chatgpt In Facilitating Language Acquisition Among Their Students, Thanh Thao Le, Phuong Hoang Yen Dr, Trut Thuy Pham, Ngoc Bao Chau Tran, Thi Thuy Linh Nguyen

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

This qualitative study investigates the perceptions of Vietnamese EFL teachers regarding the role of ChatGPT in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Amidst the growing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education, this research focuses on understanding how educators at different career stages perceive the effectiveness of ChatGPT in enhancing language learning experiences. Employing semi-structured interviews, the study engaged nine teachers from two educational institutions in Vietnam. Thematic analysis, guided by the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Constructivist Theory of Learning, revealed multiple roles of ChatGPT in SLA. These include its use as a conversational partner, a tool for immediate feedback, …

Analyzing The Effectiveness Of The Readi System In Helping Non-Native English-Speaking Preschoolers In Sarawak Learn The Alphabet: A Pilot Study., Yen Vee Tan, Julia Ai Cheng Lee, Rehman Ullah Khan, Chwen Jen Chen, Kartini Abdul Ghani, Sarah Flora Samson Juan, Brian Chung Shiong Loh

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

In Sarawak, Malaysia, many children come from multicultural backgrounds and are predominantly non-native English speakers making preschool education essential for developing early literacy skills in English. However, high teacher-child ratios can impede effective learning. The READi system—a module-based, multisensory, web-based early literacy intervention—was introduced as a supplementary classroom tool to address this challenge. This pilot study specifically evaluated the effectiveness of the "Alphabet Adventure" module within the READi system on enhancing alphabet knowledge, with a focus on letter recognition and letter name knowledge. The research design employed a pretest-posttest control group approach grounded in the positivist paradigm. [YT1] Participants were …

Analyzing Teachers' Perceptions Of Mobile Learning In Senior Secondary Schools: A Frame Model Perspective In Sub-Saharan Africa, Dennis Kealeboga Mabalane Junior

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

The paper focuses on a systematic review of existing literature regarding the teachers’ perceptions toward mobile learning (mLearning) in public secondary schools across sub-Saharan Africa. It emphasizes that this research synthesizes previously published work rather than presenting original findings. The review identifies significant challenges and opportunities associated with mLearning implementation, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has accelerated the adoption of mobile technologies in education. Despite the growing body of literature on mLearning trends in sub-Saharan Africa, there remains a notable lack of systematic reviews specifically addressing stakeholder perceptions. This study aims to fill that gap by …

Analysis Of The Scratch Program For Computational Thinking In Schoolchildren In An Educational Institution In Peru: A Network Analysis, Rolando Oscco Solorzano Dr., Leonor Torres Matos Dr, David Aroni Palomino, Miguel Armando Alcca Huisa, Jeanny Helen Ppuño Huaricachi, Delio Merma Saico

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

Abstract: o analyze the relationship between the Scratch program and students’ computational thinking in an educational institution in Peru, relational research guidelines were followed with 384 regular elementary school students aged 6 to 12. The group had a higher percentage of males (52.6%) compared to females (47.4%). Two custom questionnaires were used to measure both variables. The study found that the aesthetic aspects of the Scratch program are the most significant component for developing computational thinking (=3.34; =2.34; =2.47), especially the dimension of computational practices. Limitations include a small sample size for analyzing sociodemographic variables, operationalization of computational thinking dimensions, …